


as i love the firelight

by sannlykke



Series: anachronisms of a floating world [1]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Steampunk, M/M, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2015-07-09
Packaged: 2018-04-08 11:46:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4303746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sannlykke/pseuds/sannlykke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If anything, he trusts whatever Akashi lets him have to be of the best quality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	as i love the firelight

**Author's Note:**

> [sheelia](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sheelia) gave me the prompt of "mayuaka, steampunk, secret relationship" from [this post.](http://resident-longwinded-anon.tumblr.com/post/99087361601/its-fairly-self-explanatory-i-think-i-was) a few things were changed/edited from the original tumblr posting.

He descends the wobbling ladder carefully, grime-dusted gloves leaving small stains from wherever he grabbed too tightly. The deck groans just enough to make him nervous as he lands, though nothing gave way as he scrambles quickly into the building. In the aircraft above, Hayama calls out loudly after him, “Oi, Mayuzumi, you forgot your glasses!”

Mayuzumi watches the ladder roll back upwards, and waves a hand with as much vigor as he cares to. “Keep it for me for a bit!”

The wind carries his voice upwards, and Hayama’s face disappears from the window. Mayuzumi peels his gloves off, wincing as another gust shakes the tattered wooden structure. Best to get down to the bar already.

(To be honest, he  _really_  hates flying. But.)

Down below the voices are rowdy, and he hears the clock crow three o’clock as he slides off the metal stairs. Nobody pays him any attention; Mayuzumi weaves through the bawdy joking and yelling, murmuring figures peddling their information and inventions discreetly behind large glasses of beer. He lands at this station every time he comes to Kyoto, and still there is no telling if anyone recognizes him.

Mayuzumi dodges a customer balancing a tray of something - he does not stop to glance at it, though it makes a strange whirring noise as he passes - and walks out the open door, immediately melting into the streets.

 

 

Kyoto is less sprawling and dense than Tokyo is, less looming skyscrapers, but that doesn’t mean navigating it is any easier. Mayuzumi considers himself observant and well-traveled - for someone of his status and disposition - yet every time Akashi requests a change in location he cannot help but wonder if every shady wayside eatery or club in town belongs to the fucking Akashi Corporation.

“Shit,” he mutters, stooping to free a shoelace from the cobblestone. The streets here could really stand to be better-maintained. If only he had more money for a carriage or even a horse - or for  _someone_  to send for him like a proper rich young master should. Mayuzumi sometimes wonders if this is part of a game - everything Akashi does inevitably leads him back to these thoughts.

But what is a lowly crewman to do in front of the scion of one of the most influential families in Japan? He sighs and continues on, steering clear of the gilded oncoming carriages, their wheels sending pebbles flying underneath.

 

 

Mayuzumi raps three quick, consecutive times on the leftmost door inside  _The Red Emperor_ men’s club, ignoring the strange noises coming from down the hall.

 _Huh, very funny_ , he thinks, just as the door opens. He is pulled in quickly, the door shut so unceremoniously that his trousers get caught and rip. Mayuzumi looks at Akashi levelly. “I need these for work tomorrow.”

Akashi is wearing some ridiculous puffy-sleeved shirt (not that Mayuzumi would ever tell him that, lest he wanted more than ripped clothing) under an admittedly good-looking leather vest. Mayuzumi’s eyes hone in on the tiny rubies studded there, forming a swirling pattern that looked quite like a heart. Except it couldn’t be. Akashi clears his throat. “…Do you need to inspect me closer?”

“Is that really the first thing you tell me.” So maybe he does - he should’ve told Hayama to chuck the glasses at him, except they would  _definitely_  have broken and he really doesn’t want to get another pair, as much as they were for aesthetic rather than practical purposes. Akashi does not reply, but instead leads him to the fireside. The room isn't terribly expansive, with the bed taking up a third of it and a rather large fireplace on the other side. An English import, no doubt, and one liable to burn the entire building to the ground if they weren’t careful - but Akashi is  _always_  careful. This much Mayuzumi knows.

“Nobody else outside?”

“Didn’t see any.”  _Do you think they’ll notice someone like me?_  Mayuzumi watches Akashi unbutton his vest, pale fingers dexterously sliding the ivory buttons aside. The firelight glancing off his hair tints it a nice orangey color. “Do you need help?”

Akashi gives him a faint smile. ”I didn’t ask you to come to be my servant, Chihiro.”

Mayuzumi tilts his head at him as he kicks off his boots. “Really.”

“Really.”

The silver-haired man tries to discern the emotion in his eyes, but both of them hold a glint of the flames. He leans forward; Akashi meets him, assertively, and pulls him into the mattress.

 

 

(At some point Mayuzumi wonders out loud which number he is, which part on a production line, but then Akashi kisses the bump of his collarbones and murmurs  _don’t be silly, a number is never like this._

Never like this.

Mayuzumi shifts underneath and curls his fingers in Akashi’s hair, the color of the impending sunset outside the rooms’s ugly stifling curtains, and turns him over. Maybe this time he can start to believe.)

 

 

“I’ve lost,” is all Mayuzumi says, dully, at the shogi board before him.

He’s put his clothes back on, though they’re in a sort of disheveled state. Akashi is wrapped up in a blanket, sipping green tea that a servant just brought in. Mayuzumi has no idea how many people Akashi buys off just to let this happen between them and doesn’t care to, really, but it seems a bit much.

“Not yet,” Akashi says, moving one of Mayuzumi’s pieces. “You could’ve done that.”

“But I won’t.” He sips at his own cup instead, the soft jasmine notes adding a subtle kick to the already full-flavored tea. If anything, he trusts whatever Akashi lets him have to be of the best quality. When Mayuzumi puts it down, Akashi has already quietly started to put the pieces away. “Hey, I didn’t say I wasn’t up for another game.”

“Oh?” Akashi looks as if he were going to continue, then rights the board again.  _This is new,_  Mayuzumi gathers, fingers curling around the cup once more. He bites down a smile, and thankfully Akashi is too busy putting the pieces back in place to notice. “One more. I have to leave at seven.”

“Mm.”

Both of them know Mayuzumi isn’t the greatest of shogi players, though Akashi is never one to let his guard down even then.

The wooden pieces clatter softly on the board. Mayuzumi looks up, his eyes taking in not the rooks and generals but Akashi’s brow-bones, the curvature of his cheeks. His lips part. “Seijuurou.”

Akashi’s fingers shake, then steady themselves as he captures another of Mayuzumi’s lances. “You don’t call me that often.”

“You call me Chihiro all the time.”

“Would you like me to stop?”

Mayuzumi considers this as he takes one of Akashi’s rooks. “No.”

The game is over in another five moves, though with Akashi’s prescience it may as well have long been over. Mayuzumi is helping him stow the board and pieces away into a small chestnut box when Akashi speaks again, softly. “I like how you pronounce my name. Have I told you that?”

Their fingers are touching, burning, on the verge of fragmentation inside his mind. The room is warm.

Mayuzumi remembers the first time Akashi boarded the first zeppelin he crewed, an Akashi Corporation monstrosity by the name of  _Hundred Lights_. Him and his rowdy friends - Mayuzumi hated rich, spoiled brats on principle, but did not hate their money.

Of course none of them had taken notice of him, at first. And why would they - the crewmen were ordered to stay out of sight for the most part and let the brats explore on their own. Mayuzumi had hardly been seventeen himself then, having worked on and off on ground crews for the better part of a year before graduating to this.

Akashi had found him lounging in the kitchen way past the crew’s allotted break-time. Mayuzumi did not care, and had continued reading his pocket novel - what was a fourteen-year-old going to do to him?

“We’re playing hide-and-seek,” he’d solemnly informed an incredulous Mayuzumi. “If you don’t help me find the best place to hide, I’ll tell the captain you aren’t working.”

He’d hidden Akashi in the oven, and when his friends came in to check Mayuzumi had pointed them in the direction of the broilers. The little tyrant had won the game handily, thanking Mayuzumi quietly as he crawled out of the cramped space.

Now he can smell Akashi’s favorite cologne, fading in the wake of their activities, and silently marvels. Eight years had passed since that incident, and four since Akashi had found him again and proposed a private arrangement that led him to today. One day he may find it pertinent to ask _why_ , but today is not that day.

“Maybe,” Mayuzumi replies evenly, though his body whispers  _lie_. He has heard Akashi scream  _Chihiro_ many times over, in a thousand beds and a thousand dreams. He will not scream  _Seijuurou,_  not yet. “You want me to say it again?”

A definitive lull falls over both of them. _Pleasantly unnerving_  is what Mayuzumi calls these moments, and they were not unlike the redhead still crouched over the table. Akashi puts the final shogi piece into the box, and stands up, the covers falling to his sides. He picks up his shirt, face half-turned and obscured from Mayuzumi's view. “I will save it for next time.”

“You’ll have to remind me then.” The fire had burnt down to embers, glowing softly. Mayuzumi waits until Akashi is fully clothed to turn on the gas lamps, flooding the room with artificial light. He wrinkles his nose. “These are too bright.”

A quiet laugh escapes Akashi’s lips. “We’ll choose a different place next time.”

Mayuzumi stops at the door. “We?”

“We.” Akashi brushes some imaginary flint off his shoulder. His eyes meet Mayuzumi's, and then not quite. “I will give you a call. Unless you don’t - “

“I do,” Mayuzumi says, a tad quicker than he would’ve liked. Akashi’s eyes are now staring at his hand resting on the doorknob. “You’re…ah, I don’t want to know. Goodbye, Akashi. Next time.”

Akashi does not chase after those unspoken words. He stands beside the bed, the blinding light striking him afire all the same. “Yes, next time. Goodbye, Chihiro.”

 

 

Mayuzumi walks down the stairs two by two, feeling strangely lightheaded as he blinks at the darkened sky outside. The lamps on either side of the street are just being lit; a horseless carriage passes him by, rumbling.

“We,” he murmurs to himself, shivering in the quickly cooling night air. His boots make little noise as he follows the long shadow of the buildings down the road, into the myriad voices and footsteps. Cities can swallow one whole if one was not careful, and Mayuzumi is always careful.

But cities are not Akashi Seijuurou, and never will be.


End file.
